Arizona weekly enterprise., 1887-09-17
THE PIECE OF BREAD.


 he was causing his famous mare Perichole who had been broken winded since she caught a chill at the Derby-to take the waters, when, glancing carelessly over the paper one morning just after breakfast, he read there the news of the disaster of Richshoffen.
 He emptied his glass of Chartreuse, laid his napkin down on the restaurant table, gave his valet orders to pack his trunks, took the express two hours later for Paris and hurried to the recruiting office for the purpose of enllsting in a regiment of the line.
 Now, though the Duke de Hardimont had led the enervating life of petit creve this was the term in mode at that time from 19 to 25, though he had done his best to degrade his nature in the stables of the race course and in the boudoirs casions on which he could not forget that Enguerraud de Hardimont died of the plague at Tunis on the same day with St. Louis, that Jean de Hardimont commanded the Great Companies under Du Gueschu, and that Francois Henri de Hardimont was killed while making a charge with Maison Rouge at Fonte noy. However enervating his scandalous and senseless amours with Lucy Violette, the prima donna of the Nudites Paris iennes, yet when the young duke learned that Q battle had been lost by the French on French soil, he felt the blood mount to his forehead, and experienced for the mo- ment e horrible sensation, as if he had just received a slap in the face.
 Thus it was that in the early part of November, of 1870, having re-entered Paris with his regiment, which formed part of the corps of Winery, Henri de Hardimont, fusilier, third man of the second line, and member of the Jockey club, formed, with his company, part of the main guard in front of the redoubt of Hautes Bruyeres, a position fortified in haste and protected by the cannon Of the fort of Electro.
 The scene was desolate one-a road fanked by stunted trees and broken up by muddy by paths traversing the sickly looking fields of the suburbs, and on one side of tbts road Q dcSerSeo ls{n, an inn with arbors, of which the soldkera-had- made their guard house. An engagement had taken place there few days before; the grape shot had cut asunder several of the saplings by the roadside, and they all bore on their bark the white scars left by the shot, As to the house itself, its aspect made one shuddcr; the roof had been sunk In by a shell, and the walls, of the color of muddy wine, looked as if they had been painted with blood. The empty arbors, roofed by a network of dark branches; the casks turned bottom up- ward, the swing, the wet cords of which creaked in the wind, and the words over the door defaeed by balls Private rooms. Verrnouth: Wine 60 centimes a litre"- which served as frame to the picture of dead rabbit with two billiard cues crossed | and tied together by a ribbon underneath, all recalled with cruel irony the Sunday pleasures of the people in days gone by. And overhead dreary winter sky, across which were passing large leaden clouds a sky low, gloomy and threatening. At the door of the inn the young duke stood motionless, his chassepot slung across his shoulder, his kepe drawn over | his eyes, his benumbed hands thrust into the pockets of his red trousers, shivering inside his sheep skin cloak. He had given himself up to gloomy meditation, the soldier of defeat and was watching with 1 heartbroken glance the line of hills fading away in the mist, above which arose, in | rapid succession, accompanied each time Ls detonation, the white puffs of smoke of the Krupp cannon.
 All at once he was conscious of a sensa-
 
 | knee and took from his knapsack, which rested against the wall beside him, g large piece of ammunition bread; then, as he had lost his knife, he broke it of, bit l by bit, with his teeth, and ate 1t slowly. But after few mouthfuls he had had enough; the bread was hard and had { bitter taste. And there would be n( fresh bread until to- -morrow's distribution and then only in case the commissaria should think fit to distribute it. The pro fession was, in truth, at times a rathe rough one; and all at once there came t mind the thought of what he used to cal his hygienic breakfasts, when, on tn morning after supper of too stimula ting character, he would sit opposite window on the ground floor of the Caf Anglais, and order-good heavens! tn merest trifle-an omelette with asparagus and the head waiter, knowing his habits would place on the table a slender bottl of old Seville, resting softly in a basket and uncork it carefully. Deuce take it That was pleasant time after all, and h would never be able to accustom himsel to this miserable fare.
 And in @ moment of inpatience tn young man flung the rest of the piece c bread he had been eating in the mud.
 At the same instant private of the lin came out of the ruin; he stopped down picked up the piece of bread, withdrew few steps, wiped the mud from it with hi sleeve, and began to devour it eagerly Henri de Hardimont was already ashame of his action, and gazed with pity at tn poor devil who had given proof of so goo an appetite. He was tall and loose bull youth with feverish eyes and beard tha betrayed 0 recent sojourn in the hospita
 and so thin that his shoulder blades wer
 sharply defined through the cloth of h1
 well worn cape.
 ''You seem to be very hungry, con rade," said the duke, approaching the SO
 dier.
 'sAs you see, {" responded the latter, wit
 his mouth full
 "Forgive me, then; if had known 70
 would like to eat it, should not ha' 1, thrown away my bread"
 "There Is no harm done," replied u
 soldier, 'I am not so very delicate in n
 tastes"
 i'No matter" said the nobleman; 'wh'
 did was wrong, and l reproach myse
 for it. But l do not want you to tai away with you bad opinion of me, ar | ~z YLoro .or,a old co0nea fin my Cantel